


Abyss

by sarahandthegraveyardshift



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Space Husbands, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-03-07 02:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3158303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahandthegraveyardshift/pseuds/sarahandthegraveyardshift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You can get us to the surface. You can get us back to the Enterprise...And you can revive me. You're the only one I trust to get me back, Bones."</p><p>Jim and Leonard are trapped in a damaged shuttle under water with no communication and little chance of survival. Jim's big plan is to let himself drown so that Leonard can get them both back to the Enterprise and revive him as quickly as possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> You've all seen the movie Abyss, right? Well, good grief Charlie Brown, if you haven't, go and youtube that nonsense right this very minute! You'll want to see "The Abyss - Lindsey Drowns" and "The Abyss - Favorite Scene" (in that order). These are, possibly, the greatest cinematic scenes in the history of ever, and they are what this fic is based off of. If you'd rather not subject yourself to the greatness that is "The Abyss," then I respect your decision and please enjoy this fic anyway, but know that you are hella missing out on an amazing movie. 
> 
> With that being said, I do appreciate you happening upon this small fic, which I am certainly NOT using as an excuse to NOT work on other such fics...ENJOY!!! :D

“Enterprise, this is Kirk, do you read? Enterprise, this is Kirk, over.” Jim sighed and rubbed tiredly at his eyes, glancing down at the man currently bandaging his forearm, then towards the back of the exploratory shuttle—the one that had suddenly crashed on the ocean floor of the water planet they'd been sent to investigate—where water was steadily pouring in from the rough impact. “Still not getting anything.”

“Communications are probably jammed this far below the surface,” Leonard grumbled, eyes casting a fleeting look towards the front window of the shuttle. Miles and miles of water, and barely an inch of metal separating them from it. It was almost worse than space. He couldn't understand how Jim managed to talk him into these sorts of things. He tied the bandage off and inspected his work with a frown. “It'll have to do until we can get back to the Enterprise.”

Jim nodded, giving his arm a distracted once-over before picking the communications receiver up again. “Enterprise, Enterprise, this is Kirk, over.” Only static responded. “Enterprise, this is Kirk. We need assis—” 

There were several loud popping noises as electricity crackled across the controls, Jim dropping the receiver and holding up a hand to shield his eyes. Leonard pulled him from his chair and draped himself across the man on the floor until the noises ceased, the overhead lights going dark and the entire shuttle seeming to power down. Both men breathed hard and shivered in the cold for a moment before Leonard raised his head.

“Are you okay, Jim?” he asked, looking the younger man over, inspecting his head for any further injuries. 

“Yeah, Bones,” Jim said, swallowing roughly and closing his eyes. “You?”

“Fine. Can you get up?” Leonard was worried. Jim had already lost a lot of blood in the crash, and he was almost certain the young captain had hit his head and was suffering from at least a mild concussion. He had to get his husband out of there, and fast.

“Sure,” Jim said, lifting his head from the floor, which was already flooding with water.

Leonard helped him into the chair and looked towards the back of the shuttle, where water was pouring from behind a broken panel. “I'm gonna see if I can do anything to get the water to stop. Will you be all right for a minute?”

“Uh-huh.” 

The older man pursed his lips and ground his teeth. _Not good_ , he thought to himself, easing towards the back of the shuttle. The water was near thigh-height when he reached the panel, taking out the flashlight from his front chest pocket and shining it back behind the bent metal.

“Can you see where it's coming in?” Jim asked from beside him, and Leonard nearly jumped out of his skin. 

“Damn it, Jim, I told you to sit down. Get back over there,” he scolded, pointing in the direction he wanted the young man to go.

“Bones, what do you know about fixing shuttles?” Jim countered, taking the flashlight and shining it behind the panel himself. He squinted and made a face. “We need to get this panel off. Do we have any tools?”

“I looked already,” the older man said, his body beginning to tremble uncontrollably from the cold of the water. “Come on.” He curled his fingers beneath the panel and began to tug, Jim following suit. After a good minute of tugging with little success and the water rising to waist-high, they both retreated to the front of the shuttle. 

“We gotta get you out of here,” Leonard said, arms wrapped around himself as he tried to preserve any warmth still left in his body.

Jim's lips were blue and trembling. He sat back in the chair and breathed as best he could. He could feel the cold start to seize his lungs. “Us,” he said through the disorientation. “We have to get us _both_ out of here.”

“Okay,” the doctor said, though it was far less convincing than Jim, even in his state, believed. “How?”

“I...I don't know.” Jim's eyes began to close, and Leonard leapt forward to keep the young man upright in his chair. 

“Hey, hey, Jim.” He patted the young man's cheek. “Jim, listen to me. You have to stay awake, all right? You have to come up with the plan here. You know me, damn it. I'm...I'm just a doctor. I don't make plans. That's your job.”

Jim's eyes opened a fraction. “ 's cold, Bones.”

“I know,” Leonard said desperately. “I know, just...Here, give me your hands.” He took Jim's hands in his own and began to rub them, blowing warm air on them and watching as Jim fought the urge to fall unconscious. “Jim. Jimmy...You're smart. You can think of something, come on. Just...think.”

Jim sat up, his head lolling forward slightly before his gaze centered on the small device sitting on the useless control board. He pulled one of his hands from Leonard's and curled his fingers around it. “Here,” he said, handing their only functional breathing device to the doctor.

“No,” Leonard refused, pushing the device back towards the younger man. “Absolutely not. Jim, that's for you.”

“You can...You can swim to the surface. Get help.”

Leonard shook his head. “I won't make it in time. The water's coming in too fast.”

“There's nothing else,” Jim slurred, glancing down as water sloshed around their ankles. 

“We can share it,” Leonard said, nodding even as the other man shook his head. “We can make it to the surface together.”

“There's b-barely enough oxygen left in this thing for one person,” Jim argued, hands beginning to shake violently. “Don't...fight me on this one, Len. Just...Just....”

“No, this can't....” Leonard's gaze swiveled around the shuttle desperately. “There's another way. There's _always_ another way.”

The young captain leaned forward, cold fingers curling into the damp hair behind Leonard's ear and thumb stroking his cheekbone. “There's a way,” he agreed, head dipping in a short nod. “I...I drown.”

“ _What_?” 

“I drown,” Jim repeated quietly, as if he were talking about beating the Kobayashi Maru. Or about moving in together. Or about getting married. Or about a hundred other things he'd said to the doctor in the past that should have warranted some sort of emotion other than the absolute and utter calm he was exhibiting at the moment. “And you get me back to the Enterprise.”

Leonard stared at him in abject terror, his breath catching in his throat as the words sank in further and further, mingling with the chill and making him numb. “Please tell me you didn't just say that,” he demanded, hands coming up to Jim's upper arms and fisting the fabric of the man's wetsuit. 

“Bones, be logical.”

“Are you _kidding me_?” the doctor shouted, shaking the younger man where he sat. “I am not some _green-blooded hobgoblin_ you can just throw _logic_ at, Jim! This is...This is....”

“Our only option,” Jim said, shoulders hunching as the ache in his chest grew more uncomfortable. 

“The stupidest idea you've ever had, James Tiberius Kirk!” Leonard finished, an unwanted sting tingling at the back of his eyes. “And I've been privy to more than my fair share of your stupid ideas.”

“Listen—”

“No!”

“ _Listen_ ,” Jim insisted, eyes closing a moment as he took a deep breath and centered himself. “You're a stronger swimmer than I am.” 

“I'm not,” Leonard said, voice cracking as he shook his head.

“Right now, you are.” Blue eyes held the doctor's gaze intently. “And this water's...f-freezing.” Jim attempted a smile as he shivered to prove the point. “You can get us to the surface. You can get us back to the Enterprise. And you can revive me.”

Leonard had no words. Logically, yes, Jim had a point. In his state, the doctor was the only one with strength enough to get them both out of the shuttle and back to the ship. But...Leonard would never be able to forgive himself if something went wrong. If Jim's concussion were too severe and going unconscious would only make it worse. If he couldn't get to the ship in time. If he couldn't bring Jim back....

“You're the only one I trust to get me back, Bones,” Jim said, and Leonard's gut clenched. “Now...T-Tell me. Tell me how it works.”

Leonard's eyebrows knit together in confusion. “How...?”

“What h-happens...after...after I drown?” Jim asked, staring at the man hard. 

Leonard moved his hands to Jim's and closed his eyes, the breathing device clutched between their fingers. “You...Your body systems will slow down.” A lump rose in his throat, and it took all he had to swallow the sob at the back of his throat. He couldn't think about this. Not after he'd already had Jim's cold, dead body on his table in the infirmary. Not after he'd stared down at someone who'd once been breathing, whose heart had once been beating.

“Hey.” Jim pulled him closer, pressed their foreheads together. Their breath mingled between them as water swirled around their knees. “They'll s-slow down. They won't st-stop. I'll still...I'll still....” The young man shuddered, his head falling to Leonard's shoulder.

“You can be revived after ten minutes,” the doctor continued, fingers snaking into Jim's hair and rubbing at his scalp. “Fifteen tops. Anything longer than that....”

“And you'll be there, Bones,” Jim breathed into the man's neck. “You'll be there wh-when I...when I wake up.”

“When you wake up,” Leonard confirmed, the tears that had been just on the brink of his eyelids slipping forward and down his face. The water was waist-high, and Jim's trembling was starting to dissipate. Hypothermia was setting in.

Jim pushed at Leonard's shoulder, sitting back in his chair and staring at the man resignedly. He'd already given up. He didn't think he was going to make it anymore than Leonard did.

“You can do this,” Jim said, a serene smile on his face. But Leonard could see the terror behind his eyes.

“Jim....” The water was at their shoulders.

“It's okay. You can tell me later.”

Leonard let loose a broken sound, something between a hysterical laugh and an excruciating wail, before leaning forward and kissing his husband with everything he could—everything he wanted to say but didn't have the courage to. Jim wrapped his arms around Leonard's neck, pulling himself into the man's lap and pressing against him as hard as he could. 

The water rose to their chins. Jim pulled from the kiss, chest heaving sporadically as he put the breathing device into Leonard's mouth and watched the water rise above the doctor's head. His hands clamped onto the older man's shoulders, and he squeezed, raising himself slightly as the water continued upward. This was a bad idea. This was a _bad idea_.

“Bones,” he whimpered, panic setting in as the reality of what was about to happen finally kicked his adrenaline into hyper-drive. “Bones, I...I'm scared. Bones....” The water had taken nearly the entire shuttle, so, clenching his eyes shut and taking one final breath, he submerged himself completely. He could see, but only just barely. The flashlight had fallen to the floor, illuminating them in an eerie, artificial beam of light. Leonard was blurry, but his grip was firm, and the bubbles coming from the breathing device were oddly soothing.

Jim gripped the man's shoulders tightly, his chest already beginning to burn with the need to breathe. He knew his natural instincts would kick in soon, and he hated how his body's impulse for self-preservation would, ironically, be the death of him. He'd be forced to draw in a breath and be met with cold ice water instead of air. He would choke and draw in more water until he passed out from lack of oxygen. And then his lungs would fill, and he would be....

That medical course he'd taken at the academy was making a ferocious comeback in vivid detail that Jim really did not want.

Bones held tight to his waist. Watching. Waiting. Jim felt guilt and remorse. His husband was being forced to watch him drown, then haul his unconscious body through freezing water, all in the hopes that there was a slim chance he could be revived. It was something James Kirk, himself, didn't think he'd be able to do. But Leonard was strong. He always had been. Jim knew he could do this, that he would survive...

...even if the younger man didn't.

It wouldn't be long. Another minute, maybe. Jim's lungs were on fire. The need was there, and it was agony not to give in. He wished it was over. He wished he was back on the Enterprise recovering with his husband at his side. He wished...and then there was cold and panic and pain. His body spasmed, his fingers clawed at Leonard's arms. He choked and gasped and swallowed water until his insides were filled with ice. 

The light-headedness overtook him, and he felt relief. It was almost over. He could almost let go. Darkness crept into the corners of his eyes, and he closed them, letting the water take what was left of the air in his lungs. 

Bones held him tightly, keeping the young man anchored and feeling all the world like he was the one drowning. And when his husband's body finally went slack in his arms, it took all the strength in him not to follow him into the depths of death.


	2. Reviving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, guys, why did this TAKE so long??? ... Oh, yeah. Because I take on too many writing projects at once and end up falling short on the fics that I actually want to finish. That's right. I'm a complete asshole. I freely admit it.
> 
> As an aside, there's quite a bit of medical tech referenced in this chapter, and I'm sure more than half (if not all of it) are completely irrelevant in this particular futuristic time period. I did try, though. 'A' for effort? Let me know if I've completely mangled the Star Trek universe.
> 
> I really do hope you guys like this chapter! Enjoy!

Scotty pressed his earpiece further against his head and closed his eyes tightly, trying for all the world to make sense of the static they'd been receiving for the past five minutes.

“Mr. Scott,” a voice said behind him, and the engineer turned just in time to see Spock entering the transport room, hands clasped behind his back and a vague expression on his face. “You requested my presence?”

“I've been getting that odd transmission again, Sir,” Scotty said, sighing as he shook his head. “It started up a bit ago. I think there's a voice under all this static, but I cannae understand a word they're saying.” He flipped a switch, and the static rang loudly throughout the room.

Spock tilted his head, listening intently as the static undulated, something—or some _one_ —interwoven just beneath the surface of it. The Vulcan opened his mouth to suggest adjusting the wavelength, when all of a sudden, the static receded, and an exasperated, familiar tone broke through.

“—dammit! Enterprise, do you read?” The voice was garbled, water-logged, but it was most assuredly their missing Senior Medical Officer.

Scotty jolted forward in his seat, pressing a button on his earpiece. “We read you, Doctor, we're here,” he said slowly but loudly into the mouthpiece.

A fair amount of static still shrouded the words as the doctor spoke. “Go—sickbay, get the cart, oxygen, cardiostim—adrenaline, heating blank—You get that?”

Scotty's eyebrows pulled together, and he frowned deeply. “Got it,” he said, though the underlying concern as to why the items were needed was sitting like a rock in his stomach.

“Get everything—transport room,” Leonard demanded. “Hurry!” There was desperation in his voice, and Scotty chanced a glance at Spock, who was already informing the infirmary of what they needed. The Scotsman took in a deep breath, fingers moving steadily over the screen in front of him and locking onto the doctor's signal. It was weak, but it was there. And as long as it was there, Scotty could beam him—and hopefully a certain captain—aboard. 

The transporter pad began to brighten, lights swirling and a high-pitched noise echoing around the room as the shadow of two figures appeared. The shadows solidified, and as they did, water sloshed onto the floor around their feet, bringing with it the smell of salt and seaweed. It was Leonard and Jim.

Jim who looked...

Scotty's heart skipped as he took in his captain's pale skin, his blue lips. 

No, no, no....

0 o 0 o 0

Leonard felt crazed, desperate. Cold. He collapsed almost immediately onto the floor of the transport pad, shivering as he clutched Jim to him. The weight of the younger man seemed impossibly large now that he wasn't in the water, doing his best to keep them both from sinking below the surface. His knees ached, his leg muscles still spasming from kicking for so long, and the warmth of the room felt like fire on his skin, in his lungs. He coughed and sputtered, trying to make his tongue cooperate long enough to give orders. Spock and Scotty were there, hands gently guiding them from the transporter. 

Leonard lurched forward, hunched over as he heaved salt water onto the floor. His eyes watered mercilessly. 

Scotty's harsh tone broke through the pounding in his head. “He's like ice,” he said. 

Leonard blinked furiously, trying not to focus on the water dribbling from Jim's mouth and nose or Jim's half-lidded, vacant eyes or Jim's dilated pupils. “Turn him—” He coughed, dragging in a labored breath. “Turn him over.”

Spock and Scotty complied without question, flipping the younger man onto his stomach and sitting back as Bones' fingers scrabbled to find purchase on the slick floor. He slipped twice before he was able to reach his husband, straddling the man's hips and pressing on the middle of his back. Sea water gushed onto the floor in torrents from Jim's mouth and nose, and Leonard let loose a noise he refused to call a sob, wondering if the flow was ever going to end. It did, finally, and he scrambled off the man, demanding he be turned back over. 

The doctor wiped at his face, squinting towards the transport room entrance and asking hoarsely, “Where the hell is the med team?” The words were barely out of his mouth before several medical officers rushed in, carting a slough of medical equipment with them. They didn't hesitate on seeing their captain on the ground—in fact they managed to move a bit quicker for having seen who it was—and for that Leonard was grateful. He turned and grabbed the collar of Jim's wetsuit, tearing it down the middle to expose his chest and tugging until the clingy material rested at his waist and midway down his forearms, trapping them at his sides.

Leonard thrust a hand in the medical team's direction, fingers trembling. “D-fib, now!”

“Doctor,” Spock said in that tone he always used when he was about to contradict whatever Leonard was about to do, “do you not think that the medical team would be better suited to—” 

“Spock, shut the hell up!” Leonard snapped, ignoring the Vulcan's eyebrow raise and jerking his arm towards the medical team again. “D-fib! Now!”

An officer handed him the defibrillator with tight-lipped disapproval, which Leonard blatantly ignored in favor of turning and placing the paddles on Jim's chest. He barely yelled “Clear!” before shocking the young man, waiting for another officer to hold a hand-held screen up to scan Jim's vitals. 

Nothing. 

There was a bustle of movement as the medical team hurtled into action without so much as a word from the doctor, packing heating blankets around the captain and pumping oxygen into him with an oxygen mask and squeeze bag.

Leonard breathed with each squeeze, counting five before he said “Clear!” again, everyone sitting back as another current sizzled its way through Jim's body. Another scan.

Still nothing. 

Leonard clenched his teeth together and let loose an angry noise, tossing the defibrillator aside and leaning over to pump on Jim's chest manually. “Come on, Jim. Damn it! Come on!” He ignored the burning behind his eyes. This was not happening. This was _not happening_. He breathed three quick breaths into Jim's mouth and held two fingers to the man's carotid artery, holding his breath.

Nothing.

“Shit!” The word came out more of a whimper than a curse. “Jim, come on!” Leonard looked up into the eyes of the officer who was clutching the oxygen mask, seeing fear and sadness there. “What are you doing?” he demanded, snarled. “Oxygen! Get him oxygen!” She made to move, but a hand covered hers, and Bones turned to see Spock stopping the young woman.

“No, no, no,” the doctor said, shaking his head vehemently. “What are you—” 

“Doctor...” Spock said gently, something verging on an actual emotion in his normally stoic gaze.

Out of the corner of his eye, Leonard saw Scotty's shoulders drop, the man turning away with one hand over his mouth and the other clutching at the back of his neck, as if his head might fall off if he didn't hold it in place. The medical team retracted from Jim, starting towards the doctor carefully. 

Leonard sat rigid. This couldn't be it. This wasn't it. Jim wasn't...Not again...

Something in his chest exploded, crackling along his ribcage and into his limbs until his arms were flailing and pushing people away from him. 

“No!” he shouted, leaning over his husband and starting chest compressions again. “He's not...He's strong! Jim can do this! Damn it, he can...he can....” The strength in his arms gave out almost as suddenly as it had appeared, and he weakly grabbed at the defibrillator again, crying “Clear!” and watching the man's body jolt with no result. With a broken effort, he tried a few more compressions, breathing into Jim's mouth while ignoring the sobbing that could only be his own.

“Damn it, Jim!” he yelled angrily, forehead pressed to the younger man's chest and fingers clutching the torn wetsuit with white knuckles. “You've never given up! You've never given up on anything in your life, you stupid bastard! You fight this! You fight this, or so help me God, Jim, I will never forgive you!”

He could feel hands on his shoulders trying to pull him away from his husband's lifeless body, but he shook them off, hunched form wracked with tremors and throat swelling around agonizing sobs. 

Jim couldn't be gone. Jim couldn't be dead. Jim had to breathe. Jim had to _breathe_. 

“ _Breathe, Jim_ ,” he said as a final plea, the words disappearing into the young captain's cold skin.

And then...Jim moved. 

The room went quiet. Leonard lifted his head, wide eyes centered on his husband's face. For an agonizing moment, the doctor thought he'd imagined it, thought his mind was playing a cruel trick and filling him with false hope. But there it was again! Jim's adam's apple bobbed just slightly, his throat muscles spasming, and then there was a beautiful, spluttering cough that sprayed water past those marvelous, blue lips.

“Come on, baby, you can do it!” Leonard said, breaths coming fast and stuttered. “Come on!” 

He motioned to one of the medical officers for oxygen as Jim's coughing grew more violent, each drawn breath becoming stronger as color finally painted his white face. The doctor heard Spock give gentle commands to get both men to the infirmary, but he hardly cared. Jim was breathing. Jim's eyes were open. Jim was looking at him. Jim was trying to smile, trying to say something.

“Don't,” Leonard warned. “Don't you dare say a word.” He stood as they gently moved the captain onto a hovering bed and started out of the transport room and down the hallway. Leonard stumbled nearly the whole way there, Spock's strong hand on his upper arm to keep him steady. Officers pressed themselves to the corridor walls as they passed, looking on in confusion and worry, many offering salutes as the captain's bed went by.

But Leonard didn't care. He was laughing. Because Jim was breathing and squeezing his hand and still trying to say something around the oxygen mask that the doctor refused to let him pull away. 

“Just wait, Jim. It's okay. It can wait,” he assured him, ignoring the shaking of the captain's head.

Once in the infirmary and changed into dry clothes, Leonard refused to leave Jim's side, even when the young man lost consciousness. The medical team continued to monitor the captain and warm him up, attaching him to several scanners at the doctor's bequest to keep everything in check.

And when the adrenaline finally wore off, Spock caught Leonard before he could collapse, helping him into a nearby biobed. “Don't you...take your eyes off him, Spock,” he said. 

“I will stay with the captain until you wake, Doctor,” Spock promised, covering the man with a heated blanket.

Leonard hummed appreciatively, sleep taking him before he could thank the Vulcan.

0 o 0 o 0

Jim woke with a satisfied sigh. 

He was so very warm. So very wonderfully warm.

And so very tired.

“Jim?”

The captain groaned and tried to turn onto his side. “Five more minutes, Bones. They don't need me on the bridge yet.”

A deep chuckle sounded, and a hand squeezed his shoulder, turning him onto his back again. “They won't be _having_ you on the bridge until I say so.”

“Oh yeah?” Jim rasped, a smile curling the corners of his lips. “You gonna keep me prisoner?” He stretched his left arm out, expecting to find his husband ready and willing for a morning wake up call in the bed they'd shared for several years. Instead, his knuckles rapped against a hard edge, and he frowned, head raising from the pillow, eyes cracking open and blinking into the harsh light that could only be from one part of the ship.

“Oh,” he said in disappointment, his head suddenly heavy. He let it fall back into the infirmary-issue pillow—which was flat and smelled like bleach—and groaned his frustration. “Bones, what am I doing here?”

There was a pregnant silence. “You don't remember?”

Jim huffed and swallowed on a dry throat. “Uh,” he started, wracking his now throbbing brain for any memories before this. He remembered the day he and Leonard got engaged, how the Georgian's ears had turned pink and how he'd stuttered over the words while Jim grinned _widewidewide_ and said yes before he could get the question together. He remembered their wedding day, a small ceremony with friends and family, Admiral Pike officiating, and the trembling in his hands as he'd slid a ring onto Leonard's finger, but the utter joy he'd felt when he'd kissed him for the first time as his husband. He remembered fights and make-up sex and more fights and more make-up sex and just sex in general.

He remembered cold and water and no air, no air, _no air_. He remembered he couldn't breathe. He remembered Leonard's frightened, horrified face. He remembered...

...darkness.

“Oh,” he said in a small voice, his chest tightening and his throat closing around the next breath. “Bones.” A warm hand slipped into his, squeezing tightly, and fingers threaded through his hair.

“It's okay. I got you,” Leonard said gently, making soothing noises until Jim was able to calm himself down. “Jim...”

“Brought me back from the brink again...huh, Bones?” The captain's attempt at humor fell short, and even he wasn't able to bring a smile to his own face this time.

“I...” Leonard bit the inside of his cheek, closing his eyes and looking for all the world like he wanted to say so much more, to yell and scold and possibly even punch something. Jim wouldn't put it past him if that something happened to be a certain someone's face...though he hoped it wasn't. Leonard opened his eyes again and breathed out slowly, as if trying to reign himself in. “That can't happen again, Jim. You can't keep putting yourself into positions like this.”

“I'm Captain of the Enterprise,” Jim said, as if that was all the explanation he needed.

“Which is why it shouldn't have happened in the first place!” Leonard seethed, standing and pulling his hand from Jim's as he started to pace. “You can't just throw yourself into these missions without thinking. You have responsibilities. You have people to answer to.”

“And who else would you have sent?” Jim countered, anger filling his belly. “Who else among our crew can you imagine not being here right now because of my actions?”

“Anyone!” Leonard practically shouted, throwing his hands up in the air and giving him a hysterical look. “Anyone, including myself! Jim, you are the _captain_ of this ship. You are the most important person on this vessel and—don't you shake your head at me, James Kirk—it's not selfish to know that or think that. It's fact. Anyone on this ship would be willing to die for you.” He was pointing a finger at him and giving him the look he always gave Jim when he was completely and utterly exasperated by everything the man stood for.

“I don't want them to,” Jim said, his voice meek despite how much he believed the words. He didn't want sacrifice. He didn't want people dying in his name. He'd lost too many people already. “I don't want _you_ to.”

Leonard squared his jaw, hands on his hips. Jim could see his mind working in overdrive, could see the anger leeching from him, even though he was trying desperately to hold onto it. The doctor had always been under the impression that his arguments had more value when he was angry and abrasive. 

“What were you trying to say?” the older man asked suddenly, and Jim's eyebrows drew together. “When we were rushing you to the infirmary, you were trying to say something, wouldn't stop tugging at your oxygen mask.” Leonard swallowed and rubbed at his eyes. “Do you remember?”

Jim thought for a moment, and then his face softened, a smile finding his face. “I wanted to tell you you've got a hell of a breast stroke.”

Leonard snorted, shaking his head. “It was more of a doggy paddle,” he said, which had both of them laughing, forgetting for just a moment the horribleness of the past day. And then the doctor sobered. “I would,” he said, eyebrows rising. “For the record, Jim, I would die for you in a heartbeat. I _should_ have been the one—” 

“Don't,” Jim interrupted fiercely, closing his eyes and turning his head away at the thought. It made him sick just to think of it. “We'd both be dead, and you know it. This was the only way.” He turned back to his husband, hand raising from the bed. “We're alive, Len. We're still here.”

Leonard stared at the hand for a moment before he gave in and took it, sitting back down and pressing Jim's still-cold fingers to his mouth. “This isn't over,” he murmured into the man's knuckles, pressing kisses into the skin and sighing with exhaustion. 

“I know,” Jim said, closing his eyes and making himself more comfortable. Well, as comfortable as he could be in an infirmary bed. He missed his own bed. He missed _their_ bed. “Stay with me,” he said, yawning and carefully pulling the blanket up over his injured arm, “until I fall asleep.”

“Always,” Leonard breathed. 

Jim felt lips against his temple before sleep dragged him under to water-laced nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have to admit: This fic did not end the way I intended it to. It took a complete turn in the very last scene, and the anger that found its way in completely blind-sided me. Like...I'm the freaking writer. How can shit like that just creep up on me? 
> 
> Very easily, my friends. Very, very easily.
> 
> Also, just wanted to put this out there because I'm too excited not to share this with the world: I've been approved for a studio apartment. My VERY OWN apartment. Where I'll be living by myself. For the first time since...ever. I've never lived alone. Always had family or roommates. But I'm so ready to be independent and in charge of myself and no one else.
> 
> SO READY. Wish me luck!!

**Author's Note:**

> And now, some music recs! Because look at you, blubbering like a darn fool and needing some comfort...These probably won't help with that, but they WILL complement the fic quite nicely. Enjoy! And I'll see you in the next chapter, friends! 
> 
> I'll Drown - Soley  
> River Man - Nick Drake  
> Cold - Aqualung  
> The Way It Ends - Landon Pigg
> 
> As a sidenote, I am available for hugs. *pushes box of Puffs Plus Lotion across table*


End file.
